Microsoft"s email service, Hotmail, has rang in the New Year with a few show-stopping issues. Right on the turning of 2010 to 2011, users all over were experiencing loss of their emails and even receiving welcome emails that only new accounts would receive. Yesterday, Microsoft claimed the Hotmail issues were resolved and users" emails were not lost. Today, however, shows that there still are some major issues with the free and subscription-based email service.
Microsoft"s Windows Live Help forums have been flooded by users reporting an inability to login and access their accounts. The common message seen across all affected accounts is "We"re doing some maintenance to improve the service. We apologize for getting in your way," followed by a statement telling users to try again later. Many people waited, but when a minute turned to hours, and then to days, things started to heat up on the forums.
Many of the threads are simply just pleas for help and begging for access to their account. Other users however, were a bit more perturbed with the excessive downtime. One upset Hotmailer, posting as "NOT TELLING YOU" simply titled their thread "WHY DO YOU SUCK????" Moderators on the Windows Live Help forums have been attempting to assist users, however, usually just coming down to checking if the account is working properly, which of course the test always comes back fine.
The latest solution from moderators is to "Optimize Internet Explorer", but that still seems to have a small success rate. Popular Hotmail servers mentioned to be having issues are Bay126 and Bay128. Hopefully, the Hotmail team can quickly push a fix out to the masses as the service has not had a very good start to the New Year.